The Train Station
by Amaryllis Estyre
Summary: Random posttrilogy oneshot. Actually has Sati in it, for once. What would happen if the Train Station were a gateway between more than just reality and nonreality?


_Forgive the randomness; it was quite late when I wrote this, and I don't know if it turned out as well as I thought it did then. ; Figured it was cute enough to upload; plus, Sati_ never_ gets to be in fics, and that's just not right. Reviewers get cookies._

_Built on the thought that the Train Station might serve as a gateway between more than reality and nonreality…_

**Disclaimer:** I do not, despite all my fantasies to such an effect, own anything from the Matrix.

**xXx**

For long moments, all the child could see was white.

Her eyelids fluttered in distress, and her bright brown orbs flitted back and forth, back and forth, taking in the starkness of the room she found herself in. There were tiles on the walls and the floor, which were white. There were words on the wall, which were black, but she couldn't read them yet because they were still sorting themselves out. She waited patiently until the letters organized themselves and she could read them. They said 'Mobil Ave.'

The child had been here before. She was sad that she was here again, because nothing very exciting had happened the first time - at least, nothing exciting in a good way, in a way that made her happy. And she was in the mood to do something that made her happy. Perhaps the scary Trainman would come back and take her home soon. She would just have to wait.

She did not question why she was there; it was not in her coding to do that. She simply knew to make the best of it, and she got to her feet, her little white Mary-Janes clicking on the shiny floor as she crossed to a silver bench and sat. She crossed her legs and placed her hands in the lap of her yellow skirt. She looked to and fro, and slowly came to realize that something seemed different.

The train tracks were not there anymore. The child wondered why she hadn't noticed it before. She got up and ran quickly to where she knew them to have been and touched the white tiles. "Hmm," she said to herself, getting up and looking around again, wondering if this was really the place she recalled.

There were three doors in the walls.

She ran to the first one and opened it. She saw a room which was empty. There was a big number one written on the wall, and there were benches. There was a hat resting on one of them. The child closed the door again.

The second one produced a similar result. A big number two was on the wall instead, and all of the benches were empty and clean and brand new. The child looked around once more before she stepped back and let the door swing shut.

The third room was not empty, and the child could not help but be briefly startled. But that passed almost as soon as she had leapt behind the door to hide her presence. She peered back into the room again and regarded the woman there with great curiosity.

The woman looked up. She had bright smoky eyes and wise features. Her lips were thin and she looked tired, as though she had been sitting there by herself in room number three for a very long time.

"Hello," the child said. " Are you waiting for somebody?"

"Yes," the woman said. She did not stand up. She was wearing black clothes and the child thought that she seemed sad. The child walked to the bench and hoisted herself up beside the woman.

"Have you been waiting long?" the child asked, her legs swinging of their own accord.

The woman looked away. "I have been waiting a very long time."

The child was quiet for a while, looking around the room. The benches here were worn and tired, not like the sparkling new ones in the first two rooms she had seen. There were places in the floor where people had been walking; the child could see where they had placed their feet over and over again until the ground bore marks of their pacing. The room was very quiet, and the child wanted to talk to fill the silence up so that it would stop pressing on her ears.

"There's nobody outside, at least not that I saw," she said apologetically. "I can go look again. You can come with me. Do you want to come with me?"

The woman looked back at the child. "I'm afraid I cannot," she said.

The child had been about to get up, but she decided not to. "Why not?" she asked.

"Because," the woman sighed, "I fear that if I leave I might miss him."

"Oh," the child replied, crossing her legs and looking around again. Nothing had changed, so she looked shyly back at the woman. "Do others often come here?"

"Others come here very often," the woman replied. "Sometimes they stay and talk to me, sometimes they don't. I don't bother them if they do not wish to linger, though many do because they pity me."

"Why do they pity you?" the child asked. "Can't you leave any time you want to?"

"I suppose I could," the woman said, "but I don't think that I would. I'd put up a fight if someone tried to force me, just out of principle." She smiled briefly and the child smiled back.

"It's not very kind of him to keep you waiting so long," the child commented. "I think he ought to hurry up if you've been here waiting on him. It's not polite to keep someone waiting, is what my papa told me."

"I think he will take as long as he needs," the woman replied with another smile. She regarded the child with a brief smile, then changed the subject, assuming the child's quick mind would follow her lead. "Your papa sounds like a very good man."

"Oh, he is," the child smiled. "He was very kind to me before we had to part ways. I went to stay with the Oracle. Do you know the Oracle?"

"Yes," the woman replied. "She was a kind woman. My ... friends and I visited her often."

"Did she ever talk about me?" the child asked eagerly. "Perhaps you knew her before I did, because I don't think I've ever met you before. The Oracle was very kind to me. Seraph was, too. I liked Seraph. Do you know Seraph?"

"Yes, I knew Seraph," the woman replied, looking down, as though she didn't like the way this conversation was going.

"Oh, wonderful!" the child cried. "What about that man, Mister Smith? I always thought he was frightful, and there were so _many_ of him, which I didn't ever understand." The child wrinkled her nose. "I hope you didn't ever meet him. I didn't like him very much. He made me feel more scared than the Trainman did!"

"I knew both of them," the woman said, "unfortunately."

The child paused in thought, then clapped her hands and gasped in an epiphany. "Mister Neo?" she inquired in a hushed voice. "Did you meet him?"

The woman's face paled, and she nodded. "Yes, I met him."

"Wonderful!" the child said happily. "He was very kind to me and my family. I was sad to see him go. I would have liked to talk to him more. The Oracle and I baked cookies for him, once, except he got there before we finished them. The Oracle told me he would like it very much if we baked him cookies."

The woman was looking deliberately away, her eyes half closed, her chin hard, features braced.

"You are sad when I speak of Mister Neo," the girl said, confused. She tilted her head. "Why? Was he unkind to you?"

"No," the woman replied, shaking her head. "No, he was never unkind to me."

The child paused, frowning at the woman's distress. It was not in her programming to worry about such things for too long, so she was soon smiling again, full of childish exuberance. "I do miss him," she said. "The Oracle said he would come back. She said many times that he was not gone forever. I believed her. Do you believe?"

The woman looked oddly at the child for a moment. "Yes," she said finally. "I believe."

The child beamed at the woman, and swung her legs again, her little white Mary-Janes clicking together every once in a while, the small sound echoing throughout the empty room.

"How long has it been since someone visited you?" the child asked, her young mind skipping from thought to thought like a smooth stone on the surface of a calm lake.

The woman shrugged. "I lose track of time, sometimes," she said. "Sometimes I go for only hours without a new face, sometimes days, sometimes years. I don't know. But now, thanks to you, it's only been a few minutes!" She smiled at the child's amusement at this simple observation, the way her wide brown eyes twinkled with life in the harsh lighting of the room.

"Where do they come from, then?" the child asked. "Do they come from where I came from?"

"Usually," the woman nodded. "Sometimes they come from out of that door, like I did. But they only do that when they need to get something they forgot."

The child looked around, and the woman pointed. The child's eyes followed her finger, and saw a door. She hadn't seen it before; it blended perfectly with the white of the walls and the ceiling and the floor, but the child still wasn't sure how it had escaped her keen vision for so long.

"Where does that door go?" the child asked, moving to get up and see. But the woman moved even more quickly, her hand falling on the child's shoulder, preventing her from rising. The child froze, eyes wide.

"Do not go through that door," the woman said sternly. "It is very hard to get back out again."

"But where does it go?" the child asked again, scooting on the metal bench so her back touched the wall.

"It goes ..." the woman began, but she stopped there and didn't speak again for a very long time. The child knew enough not to ask questions when an adult lapsed into a silence like that, and she was frightened for an awful moment that she had upset the kind woman and that they were not going to be able to talk anymore. But soon the woman moved again, shifting her legs into a more comfortable position, and the child relaxed, smiling shyly at the woman, who, after a time, found it in herself to smile back.

"What did you forget?" the child asked finally.

The woman paused again, and for a moment the child thought she was going to get hopelessly quiet again. But finally, she opened her mouth. "I forgot love," she said.

"Oh," the child said. "That's an awfully big thing to forget."

The woman nodded. "It is," she agreed. "That's why I'm here. I'm waiting for love to come and find me again."

The child nodded solemnly. "Do you think it will come for you soon?"

"Yes," the woman said. "I think he will."

"I hope so," the girl smiled. "But I think I should go soon. I need to find a way back to my home. I have left it once before. I do not want to leave it again." She slid off of the bench and stood quietly, looking up at the woman's sad, tired eyes.

"I think you should go, as well," the woman said, putting her hand on the child's shoulder again, more gently this time. "It was wonderful to meet you. I hope you can get home safely."

"You too, Miss. I hope love comes for you."

And she turned and trotted out the door, letting it shut with a click behind her.

The train tracks were back, which was the first thing that the child noticed. Relieved, she thought to run back and tell the nice lady in room number three that she was going to get home all right, but, when she turned around, the doors were gone. Confused, the child pressed her hands against the smooth tile that was the wall, looking for a secret opening or a door she hadn't noticed before. But it was not in her programming for her to dwell on such things. Moments passed, and time found her perched on a shiny metal bench once more, watching and waiting for passage home.


End file.
